Society's role in shootings

Stand-your-ground law threatens public safety

The law in Florida allows armed citizens to use deadly force if they feel their safety is in jeopardy. We assume that Florida law also allows unarmed citizens to "stand their ground" if they feel their safety is in jeopardy.

capecodtimes.com

Writer

Posted Jul. 21, 2013 at 2:00 AM
Updated Jul 28, 2013 at 2:05 AM

Posted Jul. 21, 2013 at 2:00 AM
Updated Jul 28, 2013 at 2:05 AM

» Social News

The law in Florida allows armed citizens to use deadly force if they feel their safety is in jeopardy. We assume that Florida law also allows unarmed citizens to "stand their ground" if they feel their safety is in jeopardy.

Trayvon Martin didn't get to argue that defense in his altercation with George Zimmerman last year in Sanford, Fla., because he was shot dead by Zimmerman during a neighborhood watch patrol. Zimmerman followed Martin through the 17-year-old's own neighborhood. After a confrontation in which Martin gained an upper hand, Zimmerman used his concealed handgun to fatally shoot the teen.

Zimmerman's use of deadly force appears to have been fueled by zeal in his desire to assure the security of his neighbors and their property, and bravado bolstered by a concealed weapon and a law fraught with risk.

He did not invoke the stand-your-ground defense in the trial that ended last Saturday with his acquittal, but its existence created the circumstance that has deprived a 17-year-old and his family of the promise of his life, the Zimmerman family of its security and numerous American communities of their peace.

It is clear that the jurors weighed the evidence carefully and acquitted Zimmerman after determining that the prosecution had not proved its case against him.

They were tasked with determining his state of mind when he pulled the trigger, and eventually concluded that, within the confines of the law, he acted in self-defense, fearing for his life.

The jurors were, of course, unable to know what Martin's state of mind might have been and, because there were no witnesses close to the shooting, they could not know for certain who or what instigated the fatal sequence of events.

However, it is fair to assume that the stand-your-ground law significantly defined the confrontation between Zimmerman and Martin.

Nor is it a stretch to suggest the defendant's judgment was off — a juror told CNN's Anderson Cooper she thought it had been — because he not only trained his suspicions upon a fellow with every right to be walking where he was, but he ignored police dispatcher directions to end his pursuit. The fatal confrontation could not have taken place had he listened.

According to a March 2012 report in the New York Times, Miami Police Chief John F. Timoney, before passage of the law, called it unnecessary and dangerous: "Whether it's trick-or-treaters or kids playing in the yard of someone who doesn't want them there or some drunk guy stumbling into the wrong house, you're encouraging people to possibly use deadly physical force where it shouldn't be used."

In Massachusetts, "stand your ground" exists, but only within a person's home. The occupant of a house is protected by the law if he chooses fight, not flight, and kills an intruder.

The data seem to indicate that the broader laws, which extend that protection to any place at any time, do nothing to make anyone safer. Justifiable homicides in Florida tripled in the five years after the 2006 passage of the law. Other states show similar results.

That juror who spoke to CNN said she thought Zimmerman's "heart was in the right place," but that his judgment was wrong. Tragically, Trayvon Martin, following a trip to the convenience store for Skittles and a drink, was in the wrong place.